4 COMMENTS

Clarification.
Please keep this in mind.�Post by Wyeth Ruthven
“So, I did immigration casework for Senator Fritz Hollings, studied immigration law at law school under a former INS general counsel, and worked for a border Congressman in the district that included the Rio Grande Valley. So hear me out:�1. These people in detention have not committed a crime.�2. I don’t mean that in a moral or a figurative sense. I mean literally. It is NOT a crime to ask for asylum.�3. These people didn’t jump a fence, they didn’t sneak into the back yard. They are knocking on the front door and saying “People are trying to kill me in my home country, will you let me in?”�4. Now, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck. Some of these people are lying. That’s why you have a hearing. And because they might wander off, these people are held in detention until the hearing.�5. This hearing is NOT in a criminal court. It’s in an immigration court. Because these people have not committed a crime.�6. Immigration court is not like criminal court. You don’t have a right to an attorney.�7. So these people are waiting around, separated from their children, with no attorney, until they get a hearing.�8. In 2015, the median wait for an immigration hearing was 404 days.�9. Here’s where it gets even more twisted.�10. If people plead guilty to asylum fraud, they get their kids back and get deported.�11. So these people knock on the front door, which is perfectly legal, and we take their kids, and tell them the quickest way to get them back is to confess.�12. If someone committed a crime – shoplifting, armed robbery, murder – and you took their kids away to make them confess, that confession would be thrown out.�13. But these confessions are lawful, because this isn’t criminal court.�14. Because these people haven’t committed a crime.�15. Now some people think that if we make it so unpleasant for these people, they will stop trying to cross the border.�16. But the message this sends isn’t “Go Home.” The message it sends is “Sneak in.”�17. If they go home, they think they will be murdered. If they request asylum, they are separated from their children.�18. If they sneak in successfully, they’re safe. If they sneak in and get caught, they are no worse off than if they sought asylum legally.�19. And remember, these people haven’t committed a crime.”